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ACT I - The Title
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HILDEGARDE (_without looking round_). Oh yes he can.
JOHN (_pretending to start back_). Stay me with flagons! (_Resuming to_ Tranto.) And _you're_ something new here since the summer holidays.
TRANTO. I never looked at myself in that light. But I suppose I _am_ rather new here.
JOHN. Not quite new. But you've made a lot of progress during the last term.
TRANTO. That's comforting.
JOHN. You understand what I mean. You were rather stiff and prim in August--now you aren't a bit.
TRANTO. Just so. Well, I won't ask you what you think of _me_, John--you might tell me--but what do you think of my newspaper?
JOHN. _The Echo_? I don't know what to think. You see, we don't read newspapers much at school. Some of the masters do. And a few chaps in the Fifth--swank, of course. But speaking generally we don't. Prefects don't. No time.
TRANTO. How strange! Aren't you interested in the war?
JOHN. Interested in the war! Would you mind if I spoke plainly?
TRANTO. I should love it.
JOHN. Each time I come home I wonder more and more whether you people in London have got the slightest notion what war really is. Fact! At school, it's just because we _are_ interested in the war that we've no time for newspapers.
TRANTO. How's that?
JOHN. How's that? Well, munition workshops--with government inspectors tumbling all over us about once a week. O.T.C. work. Field days. Cramming fellows for Sandhurst. Not to mention female masters. 'Mistresses,' I ought to say, perhaps. All these things take time.
TRANTO. I never thought of that.
JOHN. No. People don't. However, I've decided to read newspapers in future--it'll be part of my scheme. That's why I was reading _The Echo_. Now, I should like to ask you something about this paper of yours.
TRANTO. Yes.
JOHN. Why do you let Hilda write those articles for you about food economy stunts in the household?
TRANTO. Well--(_hesitating_)
JOHN. Now, I look at things practically. When Hilda'd spent all her dress allowance and got into debt besides, about a year and a half ago, she suddenly remembered she wasn't doing much to help the war, and so she went into the Food Ministry as a typist at thirty-five shillings a week. Next she learnt typing. Then she became an authority on everything. And now she's concocting these food articles for you. Believe me, the girl knows nothing whatever about cookery. She couldn't fry a sausage for nuts. Once the mater insisted on her doing the housekeeping--in the holidays, too! Stay me with flagons!
HILDEGARDE (_without looking round_). Stay you with chocolates, you mean, Johnnie, dear.
JOHN. There you are! Her thoughts fly instantly to chocolates--and in the fourth year of the greatest war that the world--
HILDEGARDE. Etcetera, etcetera.
TRANTO. Then do I gather that you don't entirely approve of your sister's articles? 
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